Audiences/Contexts

Because the work I have created up until now has only ever been for college briefs I have never really considered the context of my creations in great detail. It is perhaps something I should give greater thought to in the future, but in the meantime I have had to think of five examples of audiences and contexts that I think I would be interested in, in the future.

Example 01: Large Scale Promotion

The images below show a range of different contexts for promotional work for a basketball tournament held in New York. Due to the location of the tournament the placement of the advertising has to be strategic. Therefore the designs have been placed in a selection of locations in a range of formats including: large scale billboards in built up areas and smaller scale posters in select subway stations. Even though the subject matter is not necessarily something I would be interested in, the visual choices engaged me and perhaps therefore engaged other people within the public who might not necessarily be interested in this sort of thing. This particular example is a bit of a pipe dream at the moment and I'm not sure if I'll ever have the opportunity to procure such a large scale promotional brief, however I'm not sure I would even want to if it meant working in an area I have no interest in. 

Example 02: Playful and Inanimate 

I'm not sure if this really fits into this category, but I wish to mention it nonetheless. In terms of an ideal audience I have always wanted to design for a younger market who are not against spending money on frivolous purchases, or in other words; myself. There are a lot of products out there which serve no real purpose other than to entertain an audience and provide engaging visuals. A prime example of this is the one below; 'plushies'. A somewhat new craze where designers, companies, shops etc. design there own toys and teddies around pointless and quite often weird illustrations. The particular example below have been created by the designer Tad Carpenter, a new found favourite of mine, and it just goes to show no matter how accomplished you are, you're never too successful to create a set of silly toys for anyone who wants to buy one.

Example 03: Everyday Objects/ Stationery

Some of my favourite shops on the high street are ones that sell graphic design in stranger and more intriguing mediums, MAGMA for example. They specialise in selling graphic products to a particular subset of students/young adults interested in parting with quite a large sum of their money for a silly and often pointless purchase. This is perfect! The examples below are just a small collection of what you would find for sale in MAGMA, the shop that I would love to have a product in one day. As you can see the products usually involve bold, attractive illustrations placed on everyday items such as plates and cups. This is an area I would love to explore further, perhaps even in the next project.

Example 04: People who Understand Pop Culture References

The one quality that I look for in the audience of my graphic design is that they understand a large array of popular culture references. Due to my interest in such a vast range of film, TV, music, theatre, books and other various trends I understand a wide range of references and 'inside jokes' if you will, but I fear that the people looking at my work won't. Below is a perfect example of the point I am trying to make. It is a piece of self directed design from Andrew Kolb that takes such a huge phenomenon in the recent music scene, Lady Gaga's 'Telephone', and combines with his style of design to create a piece of well crafted but subtle piece. When I first discovered this interpretation I was blown away by the cleverness, and then just dumbfounded by the actual design and aesthetic value. It's a perfect example of what I am interested in and would love to create in my career.

Example 05: Alamo Drafthouse

This last example is a particular context that I have always been keen to explore further. The Alamo Drafthouse is a chain of cinema's found in nine locations across America. In terms of general purposes it is a cinema that shows all the latest releases, however on a more specific note they hold a lot of more specialised events such as the 'Rolling Roadshow'. This is one night a year when original 35mm screenings of films such as The Lost Boys and The Shining are shown in famous locations. However it is not the events themselves that interest me, it is the poster artwork that are created for the events that I admire and would love to create something for one day.